COCAINE QUESTIONS HARD TO KICK

Andre Boisclair might be too popular for his own good. And the polls
that for the past couple of months have given him an ever-widening
lead in the Parti Quebecois leadership campaign might actually be hurting him.

They have encouraged him to adopt the classic front-runner's strategy
of avoiding risk and, in particular, to duck questions about his
admitted past cocaine use, questions that it might be in his
long-term interests to answer.

This week, his representative cancelled a scheduled interview with
The Gazette's editorial board, explaining that the candidate will not
give any in-depth interviews until after the leadership vote, which
will be conducted by telephone Nov. 13-15.

But Boisclair can't make the cocaine questions go away simply by
running from them.

While Liberals silently hope they'll face Boisclair as the PQ's next
leader, sovereignist adversaries appeared yesterday to be using the
cocaine issue in a last-ditch effort to stop his election.

Le Devoir reported that fringe leadership candidate Jean Ouimet said
in an interview that Boisclair had shown questionable judgment in
using cocaine and would be "a time bomb" as PQ leader.

Ouimet has been negotiating a stop-Boisclair alliance with
Boisclair's leading rival, Pauline Marois.

And Le Journal de Montreal published a letter from a well-known
sovereignist writer saying it's too risky for the PQ to choose
Boisclair as leader and he should pull out of the race. Victor-Levy
Beaulieu also made it clear that he's no admirer of past moderate
leaders of the PQ. He told me yesterday that he is a party member and
is "favourable" toward Marois, since his first choice, left-wing
candidate Pierre Dubuc, has no chance of winning.

The Radio-Canada television public-affairs program Enjeux ran a
report on the controversy. While it disclosed no new information
about Boisclair's cocaine use, it did contain interview clips of
several observers saying that Boisclair needs to submit to interviews
on the subject to put the matter behind him.

One of these observers is a Universite Laval political science
professor, Anne-Marie Gingras, who emphasized in an interview
yesterday that it's a question of public interest.

Gingras, who said she has no partisan interest in whether Boisclair
wins the PQ leadership, said he could become premier, making him
"responsible for enforcing the law."

She was not satisfied by his assurances that while he used cocaine as
a cabinet minister, it never affected his job performance, and that
he stopped several years ago. Among the questions he needed to answer
were when he used cocaine and how often he used it. And the
appropriate forum for him to answer was not in the hurried disorder
of a scrum, but in a sit-down interview on television. Only then
could the electorate make an informed decision.

Gingras said Boisclair should not put too much stock in polls
suggesting that his popularity increased after he admitted to having
used cocaine, since public opinion is fickle.

But while Gingras deplored that emphasis on strategic considerations
reduces politics to "a game between politicians and journalists,"
strategic considerations have no doubt influenced Boisclair's
handling of the cocaine issue.

The polls quickly assured him that he had won his wager on saying as
little as possible. The public sympathized with him as the victim of
hounding by the media; hard-line sovereignists who once said the
federalist press was trying to make him leader now said the same
press was out to get him. And so far, there has been no new
information has been published to keep the story alive.

But by not making a full disclosure at a time and in circumstances of
his own choosing, Boisclair has left those choices to others who
might not have his interests or those of his party at heart. He has
left himself at the mercy of his adversaries, both before the
leadership convention and afterward.

No one can always control the political agenda, but here's a case in
which someone did have control over at least part of it, and chose to
give it up.

Although the cocaine issue won't stop Boisclair from becoming PQ
leader, it isn't dead yet either, as we have seen this week. And it's
Boisclair himself who won't put it to rest.